Madame Outlaw is a historical webcomic written by Alya Rehman, with an art team led by Junk_Ren.
It is 1842 Virginia. Estelle, heiress to the Dumont transportation fortune, marries Thaddeus Montesquieu, a wealthy fur trader. However, Estelle knows Thaddeus killed her brother Isaac. On the night of their wedding, Estelle steals Thaddeus' carriage and map of the Oregon Trail, and must now make her way West, evading the dangers of the trip as well as Thaddeus himself. Accompanying her are Thaddeus' stableboy Rosco Doran, and Sybil, a runaway slave.
The comic
debuted on Webtoon in June 2021 as part of the platform's Greenlight program. It ran for 50 chapters, concluding in April 2022.
Tropes:
- Action Dress Rip: Before she makes her great escape, Estelle tears off the bottom of her white wedding gown.
- Background Body Part: In the first chapter, Thaddeus' head is framed by the antlers of a stag's head mounted on his wall. In this shot, he's explaining that he personally ensures his employees don't leak company secrets, giving it a very sinister air.
- Cool Horse: Faust, the gang's stallion, is finicky and bad-tempered, but strong enough to do the work of multiple horses.
- Close-Call Haircut: In one firefight, a bullet goes straight through Heath's ponytail.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: 1840s America isn't particularly welcoming.
- Even if Estelle is a rich white woman of "good" European stock, she's still completely tied to her husband and has great difficulty escaping him.
- In a flashback, Rosco's family was refused medical care, resulting in multiple deaths, and it's implied it was because they were Irish.
- Both Heath (Native American, specifically Seminole) and Sybil (Black woman) induce some raised eyebrows as Estelle's traveling companions. They are disparaged on a steamship and asked to go to the hall for people like them before Rosco and the Hispanic captain step in. Both also experienced racialized violence in their backstory: Sybil is a runaway slave who killed her master's son; Heath led some colonizer priests to his tribe, resulting in a massacre and Heath himself being recruited as a Tyke-Bomb.
- Egomaniac Hunter: Thaddeus is a bad man, which is established when he shows Estelle hunting trophies he's collected while he internally monologues about viewing other people as prey.
- Establishing Character Moment: The comic's first scene immediately makes it clear its heroine Estelle is a Spirited Young Lady: she's primly observing the festivities at her wedding, overhears two men having a sexist conversation, then subtly sticks out her foot to trip one of them over. Her mother then reprimands her for not being more proper.
- Five-Token Band: Lampshaded by Estelle, who comments that describing her and her traveling companions (a Frenchwoman, an Irishman, a Native American man, and a Black woman) sounds like the introduction to a joke.
- Freudian Excuse: Estelle attributes Thaddeus' ruthlessness to being forced to take over his family company at a very young age, and needing it to fight back against people who tried to take advantage of him.
- Hands-On Approach: In chapter 29, Heath corrects Estelle's form from behind, and both of them blush.
- Happily Married: The Marcoses, the captains of the steamship boarded by the characters, are a loving and affectionate couple.
- Hunting "Accident": Estelle Dumont is very suspicious of the circumstances behind her brother Isaac's death. He had tried to tell her something before going off on a hunting trip with Thaddeus, only for Thaddeus to come home uninjured with Isaac's bloody rifle and an eye on the Dumont fortune.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: In the tenth chapter, the magistrate accuses Estelle of illicit activities such as stealing staff from another estate. In an attempt to defend herself, she claims that the warden is ill of character. The magistrate replies that he had never even mentioned the warden, so why is she saying she encountered him?
- In Love with the Mark: Heath is a mercenary contracted by the Montesquieus to ensure that Estelle disembarks in New Orleans, so she can be "returned" to her husband. He winds up falling for her spirited nature.
- Literally Falling in Love:
- Rosco, who has a bit of a crush on Estelle, imagines what life would be had she remained Thaddeus's lady wife, including a fantasy where she falls from her horse and Rosco catches her.
- Heath pushes Estelle during a training session and instinctively reaches out to catch her. He ends up crouched atop her body on the deck, with both of them blushing.
- Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Heath is a handsome and fine-featured Seminole man who wears his black hair long. It's a plot point: the Hahns easily clock his claim of being a soldier as fake, because a real military man wouldn't have long hair.
- Motif Merger: In the first chapter, the family crests of the Dumont ("D") and Montesquieu ("M") families are merged into one with a "D-M" design to signify the marriage of Estelle Dumont and Thaddeus Montesquieu.
- The Mutiny: Invoked. To get Estelle away from Thaddeus in St. Augustine, Sybil conspires with the crew to mutiny against the captains and steal the ship. They then make the deck look like the captains fought back against the mutineers and threw them overboard, allowing them to keep working as heroes.
- My Sister Is Off-Limits: In a flashback to Estelle's first ball, her brother Isaac is furious when his friend Thaddeus asks her for a dance.
- Nice Guy: Rosco, Thaddeus' genial stableboy, is unfailingly kind and polite, and follows Estelle because of his principle to help those in need. When the scale and danger of Estelle's plan becomes clear to him, he tries to get her to break The Chain of Harm and find another way.
- Nouveau Riche: Estelle's parents came to America after fleeing French revolutions in the early 19th century and relied on the generosity of the Montesquieus to build their fortune. Estelle mentions that they never felt on par with Virginia old money, and it's why her mother is so insistent that she not antagonize the Montesquieus and present herself as a proper lady.
- Playing Card Motifs: In episode 10, the magistrate discussing the social order is accompanied by visuals of the rich Thaddeus and Estelle as King and Queen cards, and no-name stableboy Doran as a Joker.
- Pistol-Whipping: In the tenth chapter, Sybil tries to fire a gun at Thompson. It doesn't go off and she resorts to throwing it at Thompson's head instead. It buys them enough time to make a break for it.
- Sewer Gator: While escaping the Hahn fortress in St. Augustine, Florida, Heath and Estelle take the storm drains and run into a gator.
- Spirited Young Lady: Estelle Dumont, a French-American heiress in 1842 Virginia, is restricted by the machinations of her family and husband and rebels against them without sacrificing her femininity.
- Sleep Cute: In the 14th chapter, Estelle awakens after falling asleep on Rosco's shoulder. He's blushing when she wakes up.
- We Need a Distraction: Gilbert asks Roger to distract the Hahn guard while he and Rosco get Estelle and Heath out of the storm drain. It is later revealed that Roger decided to sing.
- Yandere: Thaddeus, a violent and delusional man who'll stop at nothing to see Estelle returned to him...because he thinks they're in love, and she's just acting out rather than escaping his abuse.
- Zip Me Up: In Chapter 6, blushes abound as Doran helps Estelle out of her wedding gown and into a more practical traveling dress in the back of the wagon.
